ETA 4 years

[Broke4speed]

Very cool! It's nice to see someone eager to drive nowadays .

 

[adomz]

Ohhh that beige! YES!

 

[mblue240]

We got the car running and it ran like crap. The motor rocked back and fourth so hard the car was moving with it. So we pulled the intake, cleaned it up, put newer injectors in, and replaced some vacuum lines. Now that it's all back together it won't even crank. I'm guessing we missed plugging in a wire somewhere.

Before:







After:



And he learned the joys of working in the dark and rain.

 

[Hodginsa]

I love how clean all your engine bays are. Going to wash mine this weekend. lol

 

[mblue240]

I love how clean all your engine bays are. Going to wash mine this weekend. lol

He definitely inherited my obsession with clean cars. Everything we pull gets washed, wire brushed, and/or painted. It's a slow process, but in the end it looks like a huge improvement.

 

[leadermoose]

Update:
We're pretty sure (my dad really) that the pre-pump died, so we ordered a new one from IPD (the big "upgraded kit" one).
My dad found a 100amp Denso alternator at the junkyard, and we got that installed (yay).
We got a new timing belt tensioner spring a bit ago, because the timing belt was slipping off of the cam gear (and ate through the timing cover). The new spring seems to have fixed the problem, but we can't be entirely sure, since the car won't start.
We found a pretty decent sized rust hole in the firewall, right next to where the wiper motor mounts. We put a piece of plastic over it, and it seems to have been the cause of my leak that was filling up the footwell of the rear driver's side. We painted the visible rust, but it's big enough that it's going to have to be cut out and patched.
I got new wiper arm to cowl seals, new brake and clutch pedal pads, a "new" B-pillar trim, and I painted my AC control cover with my paint pens (my dad saw mine, and asked me to paint the one on his '83)
Oh yeah, and I'm the kid who's car this is.

 

[brendon_ak]

Update:
We're pretty sure (my dad really) that the pre-pump died, so we ordered a new one from IPD (the big "upgraded kit" one).
My dad found a 100amp Denso alternator at the junkyard, and we got that installed (yay).
We got a new timing belt tensioner spring a bit ago, because the timing belt was slipping off of the cam gear (and ate through the timing cover). The new spring seems to have fixed the problem, but we can't be entirely sure, since the car won't start.
We found a pretty decent sized rust hole in the firewall, right next to where the wiper motor mounts. We put a piece of plastic over it, and it seems to have been the cause of my leak that was filling up the footwell of the rear driver's side. We painted the visible rust, but it's big enough that it's going to have to be cut out and patched.
Oh yeah, and I'm the kid who's car this is.

The prodigal son returns, how's the car looking now? Imgur is a good hosting site many use on here if you need something for hosting pics!

 

[leadermoose]

The prodigal son returns, how's the car looking now? Imgur is a good hosting site many use on here if you need something for hosting pics!

The car needs to hurry up and start, but looking back at the old pictures on this thread, we have made a lot of progress. Thanks for the image hosting recommendation, I was wondering why the pictures were showing up as that massive chunk of text.

 

[leadermoose]

The prodigal son returns, how's the car looking now? Imgur is a good hosting site many use on here if you need something for hosting pics!

I'm pretty sure the photos should be visible now?

 

[brendon_ak]

Booya, nice work!! Now get back to busting knuckles so you can do donuts out lol

 

[leadermoose]

Got new engine accessory bushings (my dad bought them for one of his cars and mine). I started on the alternator ones tonight.

 

[poulrais]

Got new engine accessory bushings (my dad bought them for one of his cars and mine). I started on the alternator ones tonight.

You can just resize your pictures and drag and drop them using this:

 

[leadermoose]

You can just resize your pictures and drag and drop them using this: View attachment 25908

I don't have the option to drag and drop images, I only have the option for the image URL insert

 

[poulrais]

I don't have the option to drag and drop images, I only have the option for the image URL insert

That's weird... You could ask the admins why you don't have that option I guess?

 

[brendon_ak]

I believe you get that feature if you donate to the site

 

[leadermoose]

Update:
The car is still not running, because we haven't had much time to work on it. We did manage to take out and replace the exhaust while waiting for some backordered parts from ipd. I was able to use the sandblaster at my school to sandblast the manifold. We painted that and the cat with some high heat silver paint. I got a new stainless header pipe (for 36 bucks!), and non-stainless high flow exhaust from ipd. We looked inside the cat, and there was quite literally nothing in there, so I guess I got some free horsepower .

I don't have any pictures of old cat back, but I've got a few of the manifold and header pipe.
Old, rusty:

Empty catalytic coverter lol:

New, shiny clean parts:

I don't have an exhaust sound video yet, because it's not running, but I plan on taking one once it's running well.

 

[mblue240]

The latest on the car is a new fuel filter and we fixed the wiring. I don't get some people's repairs. there was enough wire on the factory wiring to add ring terminals and have it still reach the aftermarket pump, but instead they added a length of wire, used wire nuts, and wrapped it in duct tape.

20240711_131336 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240711_122616 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240723_123556 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

And then we bought a wagon. The kid prefers a wagon and this one doesn't have giant rust holes in the floor. The plan now will be to completely strip the 4 door and send the chassis to scrap. The good parts will all be transferred to the wagon and eventually, the m47 will get swapped in.

20240731_114834 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240731_154010 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240805_110004 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240731_143444 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240805_120225 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

We got straight to stripping the interior. The front carpet was ripped in pieces and there was pine needles everywhere. How do you clean out 10 pounds of pine needs from the cowl? We then scrapped sound deadening to ensure there was no rust. We found a couple surface spots, so we'll por15 the whole floor then lay sound deadner.

20240805_131045 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240805_122028 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240805_125728 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240812_143700 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

 

[dl242gt]

Cool project wagon. You get the stuff out of the cowl by using air to blow it all down into the rocker. Then on the inner rocker panel under the carpet. You remove the plastic plugs and then you can get a vacuum inside the rocker to get that crap out.

 

[mblue240]

We're making progress on parting out the sedan. Now that the interior is out the amount of rust seems even larger than I last noticed.

20240919_081149 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240924_123629 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

20240919_120801 by M. Blue 240, on Flickr

 

[Toybox]

Nice work, as usual. It's amazing that your jurisdiction doesn't complain about a non-running car on the street. (Even if any sane person can tell it won't be there for long, typically someone gets their shorts in a bunch.)

However... if I'm seeing it correctly, those rocker edges are imparting a point load onto the weakest part of the cinder block. Utilizing the tremendous compression strength of the material would be far better than trusting the hollow spots...